Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Rainy California Style Italian Wedding Soup

Despite the famous song,"It Never Rains in Southern California" it's honest to God actuallyraining in Southern California. Having spent about 95% of my life in the finicky weather of the Midwest, I never thought I'd get caught up in the hysteria of a pending storm. I mean, its just rain, right?! Well, I suppose not really as the flooding roads are clearly ill equipped to handle rain and so are the drivers!

After driving through rivers that were once roads and barely escaping panicked drivers, I returned home to the realization that I had never anticipated the difficulty of taking care of a dog when it rains. If you live in Seattle or some other rainy clime, please do enlighten me! A simple walk around the block turned into a muddy adventure and a smelly wet dog, followed by some fun wrestling as I tried in vain to clean up said odorous dog.

Well after getting myself slimed by my once cute, but now stinky mutt, I settled in for some nice warm and cozy leftover soup last night. I spotted this recipe on Allrecipes.com and doctored it up with some garlic, veggies and spices and used ground turkey instead of beef. This is even tastier the next day as the flavors have a chance to meld. While I loved the combo of orzo, meatballs and veggies, I may experiment with adding some lemon juice for a little extra flavor in the broth.

2.In a large stockpot, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add in carrots and garlic. Stir for about 2 minutes and add celery. Cook for another 1-2 minutes.

3. Add in broth and increase heat to high. When boiling, drop in meatballs. Stir lemon zest and orzo. Season with a dash of salt and pepper, and the oregano. Return to a boil; reduce heat to medium. Cook at a slow boil for 10 minutes or until orzo is tender, stirring frequently. Add spinach and stir until wilted. Serve sprinkled with cheese.

This morning somebody asked me how my drive home was yesterday. I said "fine", still thinking like a midwesterner after 12yrs in CA. I'll never get used to power outages and evacuations because of rain.

All I can say is WORD to the bad drivers and wet dogs. We keep a stack of old full-sized bath towels by the back door. Bear's really good about going quickly, so we have towels in our hands and attack him like the drying crew at a car wash. It helps a lot that Bear understands that a towel means sit or lay down, so he does either right away. More rain coming this afternoon... brace yourself! ;)

hahah. It actually rains quite a bit in South Carolina. And since we live in the "low country" our backyard often turns into a mud pit. This means we give frank a BIG dry of/clean off every time he comes in from the rain. The soup looks great. a nice lightened version of the classic

I question why I got a fluffy little mutt each time my pup has to go in the rain to go potty! It takes forever to dry all his fluff, lol! I feel for you...We are getting loads of rain here too in Northern CA and it isn't slowing down any.I love the orzo in this soup and I can imagine adding more lemon would kick it right up.